Chase Hutchinson

What makes Provaznik’s film most effective, beyond just the care it shows to its young characters and the way it keeps their humanity at the forefront, is the fact that its story, no matter how disquieting it gets, is also frighteningly ordinary.

Skin Deep is the type of quietly ambitious film that never forgets about the personal while immersing us in vast ideas about the underpinnings of identity itself. It is a poetic and profound gem of an experience you wouldn't dare swap for anything else.

Morrisa Maltz’s Jazzy is a gentle, impressionistic wonder that authentically captures growing up.

While the more extreme moments of the film may capture the most attention on first watch and are remarkably well-executed, Potrykus deserves praise for how precisely he captures the depths of pain that come pouring out of people like the ash out of a firework.

It isn’t always a pretty picture, but it is a truthful one, proving to be a loving tribute to those lost.

Shyamalan’s latest cinematic confrontation with mortality and meaning, Knock at the Cabin, is among his best work.

When all the pieces come together, it is a work that proves to be one of the more well-rounded experiences from Rodriguez in quite some time.

It is in its willingness to peer directly through the looking glass that most other science fiction works would blink in the face of where Animalia taps into something that remains as spectacular as it is elusive.

While The Leech starts out sturdy yet simple, feeling more like a psychological thriller than anything, when it takes a leap into the full-fledged spectacle of horror, it is worth getting lost in along with the characters.

While there is certainly still much that you feel like you want to know about Stallone at the end when it all neatly wraps up, Sly manages to be a documentary befitting of its subject with unexpected poignancy and just enough revelations to land some key punches before dancing away with a one-of-a-kind smile.

That we remain invested is a testament to Boyega as he proves once more he is capable of making good films that are greater than the sum of their parts. It cements his status as one of those actors who makes any project he is attached to one worth seeking out with They Cloned Tyrone being on the better end of a career with so much promise ahead

Without all of the performers being completely at the top of their game, none of this would work, and it could grow tiresome rather quickly. Luckily, all of them give such refreshingly vulnerable, funny, and lived-in performances that make you more than happy to spend time with all of them.

Even as Dillon is the one with more to do and dialogue to speak, it’s an outstanding De Bankolé who holds the camera with such intensity that you don’t dare look away for even a second.

Critically, the film’s many revelations aren’t neat and tidy, but they are revealing in all the ways that matter.

As long as Odenkirk’s grumpy sheriff has his coffee and mustache intact, he is the key to finding the perfect balance. No matter how many blows the film and he take, the joy in seeing him swing freely makes it all good, family fun.

What makes this latest documentary from director Peter Nicks different is how it takes time to sit with the failures and go just a bit deeper.

The characters may cut into the cinematic canvas with a knife, smother it with glue, and just generally wreck it, but they can’t destroy what Soderbergh has achieved.

Life and death is one big joke in The Monkey, with the sense that Perkins is manically cackling along while he never skimps on the craft to make it all hit brutal pay dirt.

Even when you then think it may have all settled down, the film twists the knife even further.

The Inspection proves to be a rich work of personal introspection crossed with a wiser slice of life portrait of an era that can only come when looking back.

It is a film about journalistic ethics and, in its own way, the interpretation of images is grounded in [Dunst’s] outstanding performance. It isn’t an easy role to inhabit, but she does so perfectly.

Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out in terms of where things are going, a new wrinkle will be introduced that delightfully sidesteps all of your expectations.

When Late Night with the Devil casts off the tenuous bindings it is using to hold back chaos, it arrives at something more frightfully fun.

With This Place Rules, Callaghan has captured who America actually is on a larger canvas, and while the manner in which he paints lessens its impact, who we are underneath it all is where it finds slices of grim truth all the same.

It is very much an ensemble film, yet it also serves as one of the final demonstrations of how Cloud could command a scene like no one else. That alone makes Your Lucky Day a bittersweet gift, but the sharp film also has quite a lot else going on as well.

The pieces still come together to reveal a thorny portrait of how little a push it takes to create a villain.

It is one worth putting on your radar even as it magnificently goes all over the map into the cosmos the longer you get lost in it.

There will always be much to the film that is too distant, but the moments where Stolevski pulls us in closer make its portrait of passion resonate where it counts.